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WSIB announces Health and Safety Excellence program changes in response to COVID-19

Monday, April 06, 2020

Topic changes and deadline extensions available

Given the current COVID-19 pandemic, WSIB understands this is a challenging time for businesses. As such, they want to make it easier for you to respond to the pandemic, ensure the health and safety of your employees, and continue to benefit from the Health and Safety Excellence program. Noting this, the following changes to the Health and Safety Excellence program have been implemented to provide you with more flexibility and support.

If you already have an approved action plan, you may change your topic selection to address the impact of COVID-19; keeping in mind the Excellence program is intended to reward implementation of NEW health and safety initiatives. Some relevant topics related to pandemic response are emergency prevention and preparedness, in conjunction with emergency response. While these may appear to be the most timely options, the program has the flexibility to select the topics that work best for your program or management system.

If you require more time to complete topics and submit validation evidence, an extension will be provided beyond the current 12-month time limit. Evidence of topic completion can be submitted to the WSIB for validation up to 15 months from the action plan approval date (including the review of evidence by the provider). This timeframe may be extended depending on how things evolve.

#3: Extended deadline to develop and submit an action plan

There is flexibility with the 90-day expiration date for action plan submission, which will continued to be offered to you.

The landscape has quickly changed, and we are facing an unprecedented situation. WSIB wants to let you know that they are actively working to help you navigate through this difficult time.